…spending on
cybersecurity is poised to accelerate. Gartner
Inc., the information technology (IT) research and advisory firm, has estimated
that global spending on information security would reach $81 billion in 2016
and may grow to $101 billion by 2018, with the
highest growth in security testing.3Unfortunately,
investment in security measures is only part of the answer; traditional
methodologies can only do so much. To be
effective, executives in charge of cybersecurity need to adjust their mindsets
and become as open and adaptive as possible.

How this happened might make an interesting case for my
Computer Security students.

Facebook reported the BBC — and itself — to police after the
news organization flagged up 'sexualized' images of children being shared on
the social network

…The BBC said it
asked for an interview with Facebook's UK director of social policy, Simon
Milner, to discuss its findings. Milner
agreed to be interviewed only on the condition its journalists provided
examples of the photos that had been reported and not removed by moderators,
according to the BBC.

The BBC said it cooperated with the request but
Facebook then cancelled the interview and reported the news organization to the
UK's National Crime Agency.

Therein follows a complex legal and ethical debate. Under the Protection of Children Act, it is illegal in
the UK to download or distribute images of child exploitation —
something the BBC should have been well aware of. However, Facebook had requested the images in
order for an interview to take place — and these were photos which its own
moderation system had apparently deemed legal. Section 4 of the act also states
one defence of distributing or being in possession of such indecent
photographs is having a "legitimate reason" to do so.

Amazon gives up fight for Alexa’s First Amendment rights
after defendant hands over data

Amazon has
abandoned its legal battle to protect its Alexa assistant with First
Amendment rights — for now at least. The
company filed
a motion against a police search warrant in an Arkansas murder case earlier
this month, but has now dropped the case after the defendant agreed to hand
over the data contained on his Echo speaker to police.

In documents filed last Monday, defendant James
Andrew Bates said that he was willing to allow law enforcement officials to
review information contained on his Amazon Echo speaker, before the company
handed the data over on Friday. Bates
has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Victor Collins, who was found dead in
Bates’ hot tub in November 2015.

As President Donald Trump made waves over the weekend with
his latest tweets, another high-profile public official emerged as a lively—if
less provocative—new voice on the social network.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the prosecutor who
has battled insider-trading and Albany’s top lawmakers, launched a personal
Twitter account on Friday. It was a rare
step for a top federal law-enforcement official, and one that prompted a flurry
of chatter in legal and political circles about his motives.

…But while Mr.
Bharara’s embrace of the social platform stoked speculation that the move might
signal his political ambitions or the announcement of a big new case, his
office said the motivation was far simpler.

A spokesman for Mr. Bharara, Nicholas Biase, said the personal
account is a result of the office’s compliance with a new social-media policy issued by the Justice Department that prohibits
the use of account handles that identify only the individual’s name.

Mr. Bharara’s official account had used the handle @PreetBharara,
and has now been switched to the handle @USAttyBharara, which meets the
department’s protocol that handles signify affiliation with the agency, Mr.
Biase said.

As companies scale their use of big data, the move brings
a lot of questions. Does it require new
architecture? Does it require new
platforms? The Wall Street Journal’s Jay
Greene discussed the topic with Richard Sherlund, managing director and
chairman, software investment banking, at Barclays.The
discussion covered everything from going beyond big data that looks to the past
to newer applications that will be able to learn and make predictions.

MR. SHERLUND:The new Airbus has 70,000 sensors.None of that data comes down to earth. That stays on the airplane. That has to be processed locally. There are security reasons that you don’t want
that data going back and forth.

Not surprising, but disappointing. What is the priority list like for a
government bureaucracy?1. Don’t get
fired.2. Grow my budget. 3. Grow my
bureaucracy.99. Improve productivity. Perhaps “Rigorous Vetting” translates
to “rigorous paper shuffling?”

The U.S. government spends $8o billion a year on
information technology, but despite this money, its immigration data is in
awful shape. Some data is on paper, or
of poor quality and out of synch with government systems used to track wages
and employment.

Those are some of the takeaways from a new report that
conducted what amounts to a headcount of nonimmigrant visa workers in the U.S.
In the course of this investigation, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
critiqued the information-gathering systems used by the government.

Announced in September of last year, Einstein takes
advantage of Salesforce's deep learning, machine learning (ML), predictive
analytics, natural language processing, and image processing to serve as a
robotic account manager. For example,
you can use Salesforce Sales Cloud and Einstein to determine if the person to
whom you're pitching a product actually has buying power.

Have I mentioned (too often) that I like lists? Always(?) try a free version first.If it does everything you want, why pay
more?

March 4, 2017 – “I decided it was about time for a Fagan Finder update. The Video search page has been fully
updates and is now much more comprehensive, going from 26 search options to
115. It includes all sorts of videos
from documentaries to animated GIFs, and even related information such as
TV/movie reviews, scripts, and showtimes. The Groups search page has been updated
as well, and includes online groups (forums, IRC), meetups, and more. Both pages have also been redesigned to be
easier to use, load faster, and work better no matter what technology you use. Do you have feedback on these updates, want to
see other pages updated, or want to see whole new pages? Let
me know…” [Via Tara Penelope Calishain]

Google’s smarter, A.I.-powered translation system expands to
more languages

Last fall, Google introduced a new system for machine-assisted language translations,
Google Neural Machine Translation system (GNMT), which takes advantage of deep
neural networks to translate
entire sentences – not just phrases – for greatly improved translations.The company put the system to work in
Google Translate for eight language pairs in November, and is today expanding
support to three more: Russian, Hindi and Vietnamese.

Links

About Me

I live in Centennial Colorado. (I'm not actually 100 years old., but I hope to be some day.) I'm an independant computer consultant, specializing in solving problems that traditional IT personnel tend to have difficulty with... That includes everything from inventorying hardware & software, to converting systems & data, to training end-users. I particularly enjoy taking on projects that IT has attempted several times before with no success. I also teach at two local Universities: everything from Introduction to Microcomputers through Business Continuity and Security Management. My background includes IT Audit, Computer Security, and a variety of unique IT projects.